Salsa & Mambo Video Reviews

West Coast Salsa Congress

7th West Coast Salsa Congress 2005

Level: Beg-Adv

Style: Any

Content: Performances.

General Comment:
I am not a fan of performances and I am not a fan of big congresses, but this set of DVDs is great. To me, watching the LA congress DVDs is like watching the olympic games or the soccer world cup: a display of all the stars, as well as the future ones, from everywhere around the world, giving their very best. Th ese 4 DVDs contain some 8 hours of performances and, as you can expect, plenty of variety; California is widely represented, for geographical reasons, but you will also see plenty of NY and PR, many other US cities, Italy , Spain , Japan , Korea , Singapore , Venuezuela , Mexico , Holland , Australia .. you name it.. and all age groups, from kids who will you speechless to a lady who could very well be our grandma performing acrobatics which would leave me hopelessly paraplegic.. The quality is very, very high; go and compare with the very first LA salsa congress tape, and you will realise what progress has been made in less than a decade.. Q uite astonishing; maybe in 40-50 years people will talk about this era as a remarkable blossoming of creativity and technique in L atin dancing. But to me, the best of all is to see how, even among an average of such high talent, the great still stand a span above all others, and there is no need for me to name them, as you will clearly see it yourself; a demonstration of the undefinable border between top technique and 'inner class'. If you have been to the congress you will probably have this DVD set as a souvenir, if you have not been, I suggest you buy it.